TALKS BETWEEN UKRAINIAN AND RUSSIAN PRESIDENTS IN MOSCOW SET TIGHT COOPERATION SCHEDULE FOR 2008

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President Viktor Yushchenko has concluded his working visit to Moscow and left for Kyiv, the press service of the head of state reported.

The president's meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and the meeting of the Ukraine-Russia interstate commission resulted in signing a number of documents aimed at further cooperation between the two countries.

In particular, the sides agreed to embark in 2008 on practical demarcation of the land segment of the Ukrainian-Russian border and to hold the first meeting of a relevant joint commission in March or April.

Moreover, Ukraine and Russia intend to wind up before 2009 preparation of the draft documents on the delimitation of the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea and to continue negotiations as regards the delimitation of the Strait of Kerch.

Within the framework of their basal agreements Ukraine and Russia will continue their negotiation process as regards the functioning of the Black Sea Fleet of Russia deployed in Ukraine. The talks will be aimed at reaching concrete agreements pertaining, primarily, to issues of the hydrographic support for navigation in the Black and Azov Seas, the inventory of the Ukrainian land and facilities rented by the Fleet, ecology, and the legal aspect of the fleet's military activities.

The two countries' presidents agreed to step up their work under the program of joint cooperation in the research and use of outer space for peaceful purposes in 2007-2011 and on measures for information protection in creation and exploitation of the space rocket and rocket equipment.

Yushchenko and Putin also signed the Protocol on Making Amendments and Additions with Regard to Intellectual Property and Confidential Information to the Agreement between the Governments of Russia and Ukraine on Cooperation in the Research and Use of the Outer Space for Peaceful Purposes of August 27, 1996.

According to the agreements signed, the presidents will support closer cooperation between the Federal State Unitary

Enterprise "Rosoboronexport"(Russian arms exporter) and its Ukrainian counterpart Ukrspetsexport in the markets of third countries.

The sides also agreed to resolve, by the end of the current year, the issues pertaining to licensing agreements and rights to products of intellectual activity in joint projects of aircraft construction and propulsion engineering with the purpose of speeding up their realization. Ukraine and Russia will prepare an interstate agreement on regulating the rights to products of intellectual activity and an intergovernmental program of state support for the enterprises implementing hi-tech projects. These plans must be implemented by the end of 2008 in order to resume the serial co-production of AN-124 aircraft.

UKRINFORM